British jihadists trained by al-Qaeda in Pakistan have been ordered to spread
their knowledge throughout Europe so fanatics can "whack" innocent
people.

The terrorist group now favours training a few extremists and using them to recruit other cells to carry out attacks in the West. Leaders consider it safer than people travelling to training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and running the risk of being discovered. It is another sign of the growing weakness of al-Qaeda's traditional strongholds.

Details of the orders emerged after the ringleaders of a Birmingham terrorist cell were convicted on Thursday of planning a suicide bomb campaign in Britain. Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, face life imprisonment after plotting to kill hundreds of people using eight suicide bombers armed with guns.

Naseer and Khalid travelled to Pakistan to learn how to make bombs and poisons. The pair were secretly recorded speaking to their terrorist cell by MI5 and the police. Naseer told his members that al-Qaeda wanted "more and more people [to] have [a] stance in Europe" so "they can start whacking you there".

Khalid added: "They've told us that we want to spread this knowledge in Europe, that people, that they shouldn't be, you know, coming up, basically here [to Pakistan]. They were saying we want to spread our knowledge to around here, said we want to spread our knowledge to Europe, now we've got enough people here."

The case also exposed flaws in the Government's Prevent strategy, which is meant to encourage communities to work with the police to highlight and stop the radicalisation of young people.

Related Articles

It emerged that some people in Birmingham knew that Naseer sent four other men to Pakistan for training but did not alert the police.

Youth workers in Birmingham said that Prevent had failed in the parts of the city where it was needed most. They said many parents would not raise concerns as they were in denial that their children could be involved in terror planning.